Sunday, 10 April 2011

SMOKERS will be able to receive an anti-nicotine vaccination by 2012, according to a government-based group called Socidrogalcohol.

Its president, Julio Bobes, says clinical trials in the USA on 2,000 people led to at least 40 per cent giving up smoking for good.

The vaccination works using pleasure inhibitors by preventing the subject from getting any enjoyable sensation from his or her intake of nicotine.

Yay! A cure for enjoyable sensations. About time too, the pleasure derived from tobacco - or any other recreational nicotine product for that matter - has required clinical eradication for quite some time now.

Socidrogalcohol, of which Bobes is the leader, is an organisation that falls under the umbrella of the Spanish Ministry of Health, and is holding a series of information days in Madrid this weekend in a bid to prevent addiction, especially among the young.

Well that shouldn't be a problem anymore, should it? Simply initiate a program of injecting the little buggers at school. It'll be another jolly BCG-style coach outing to the local clinic for pubescent kids. Get in early and vaccinate them against unapproved personal choices, eh?

It's not like anti-smoking pharmaceutical products have ever caused any consternation before, now is it?

23 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The vaccination works using pleasure inhibitors by preventing the subject from getting any enjoyable sensation from his or her intake of nicotine.

So this is just "Champix-in-a-jab," then - because that's exactly how Champix works. What the packet on either product won’t tell you, though, is that the human brain doesn’t actually have specific "nicotine pleasure receptors" or "alcohol pleasure receptors" or "chocolate pleasure receptors" - we just have general "pleasure receptors" which respond to all the things which we consume or do which our bodies react to positively, stimulating those little receptors to respond in turn with that nice “Aaah! Lovely!” feeling. It’s a clever little trick which our bodies play on us to ensure that we go on getting the things which they need to maintain their wellbeing. It’s the payback, if you like, for going to the effort of fulfilling those needs. Otherwise, no-one would bother.

These receptors are highly individual to each person, because they are tailored specifically to that person’s bodily needs, which is why everyone's likes and dislikes are so different. But knock these out and you knock out that person’s ability to feel pleasure about anything, any time, ever. It's one of the reasons why Champix has been associated with such drastic side-effects, and it isn’t surprising really, when you think about it. Just imagine for a second not being able to get any feelings of pleasure about anything any more – not from food, not from drink, not from cigarettes or drugs, not from work, not from relaxing, not from music, not from sex, not from hobbies, not from spending time with the kids ...... depressing thought, isn’t it? What, in all honesty would be the point of living a life devoid of any pleasure at all? No wonder Champix users try and top themselves, and no wonder, too, that some try and top other people, if those people have been instrumental in “persuading” them to take it!

Paradoxically, smoking actually stimulates the growth of these pleasure receptors quite radically, which is probably why, despite all the persecution and unfairness and lies and prejudice, smokers are still the most friendly, easy-going, cheerful people to spend time with. So ……. once you’ve stopped your course of Champix, (or – now – once the vaccination has worn off) the only way to start enjoying life again will be (oh, the irony!) …… yep, you guessed it!

Fantastic, but I see a problem. You see, I'm not so keen on injections.

Do you think there's a way it could be administered over a longer period of time, in a bio-degradable package? I'm thinking along the lines of something that can be taken into the blood stream via means of inhalation.

Those brain receptors aren't just for nicotine. As you say, it's an inoculation against pleasure.

One thing nicotine does is suppress appetite. So, depending on how this thing works, it will either block the brain receptors that suppress appetite and we'll all be permanently eating, or it will put those receptors into permanent-on mode and we'll all stop eating.

Meddling with the brain is dangerous, but then we're only smokers. The antismokers won't be at all perturbed by Dr. Mengele's latest experiments.

ASH are still pushing the suicide pill and they'll be right on board with this one too.

Anon's explanation is first rate. Such switching off of 'pleasure' receptors in the brain is what distinguishes clinical depression from feeling miserable. The notion that this would be a 'cure' would be laughable if it weren't so frightening.

Also, a "vaccine" which works in only 40% of cases sounds like very poor science. It would never pass muster with measles.

Reading the comments above, I beleive that this injection should be forced on all the righteous anti-smokers.If it inhibits pleasure, and they take pleasure in hectoring, maybe this injection could become an antidote to righteous nannying and hectoring?

As an enticement to any reluctant injectee, they could include a two week all-expenses-paid trip to San Francisco, California. Once there they'd learn how to actually enjoy a constant state of non-enjoyment. Why they've even renamed the formerly hedonist junction of Haight and Ashbury streets to Killjoy Korners now.

"What, in all honesty would be the point of living a life devoid of any pleasure at all?"

But, but, but, that is precisely the point with these people. There is to be no pleasure. You work to provide, you eat and drink to stay alive and you have sex to procreate. Enjoyment doesn't enter into it. They'd have thought a vaccine like this was a gift from God in 1650.

Anon @ 16:34: I make you spot on there. Or, considering I know of at least one who has had to take anti-smoking 'classes' before even being allowed to sign up with a GP, perhaps before requiring any treatment at all.

Actually, that was part of what WWII was about, to kill the Nazis, who were anti-smoking among other things, all of which came riding in on their anti-smoking and eugenics band-wagon.

Maybe that is why the WWII generation didn't pay any attention to smoking bans - they smoked through way through a major world war and killed off most of the anti-smokers, quite literally, along the way.

It may be too, at the rate we are going, it will result in another world war situation just around the bend.

Level of prohibitions and bans, state of the economies, state of politics, conquered nations of Europe - there's quite a few signs indicating that you may soon just get that opportunity, to kill an anti-smoker, only it won't because you may necessarily want to - it will be because you will have to - in order to preserve western style freedom and liberty, the way the WWII generation was called upon to do.

I mean at some point, you really have to stop beating a dead horse with these anti-smokers and simply take action. That's when it will come to the boiling point and foam over.

I don't think it unreasonable to say that scientists have isolated the parts of the brain that respond to nicotine, and have worked to block these things in order to stop enjoyment of nicotine, without attempting to block any enjoyment of anything. That is at any rate what is being described here: http://mbalaw.com/chantix.html. These are lawyers who fight for people who have come to grief as a result of Champix.

The problems come when Champix blocks serotinin receptors but this is a side effect, not a primary intention. I still believe this drug is too dangerous to be left on the market.